For centuries farmers have saved seeds from season to season; they
planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and
cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring.
Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.

As Jim Gerritsen of Wood Prairie Farm in Northern Maine and
President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA)
eloquently points out on our ENVISION THIS! September 6 th
broadcast, the industrial giant, Monsanto, has developed genetically
modified seeds that are resistant to its own herbicide. That
herbicide is called Roundup, which farmers spray fields with to
control weeds while their crops are protected from the death-dealing
effects of a tiny, patented gene. Monsanto has, therefore, been
allowed to patent the seeds, so now it controls both the crops and
the chemical weed killers. Brilliant marketing, disastrous long-term
economic and ecological outcomes!

For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and
Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them
as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. In 1980 the
U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into
widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin
taking control of the world's food supply. In its decision, the
court extended patent law to cover "a live human-made
microorganism." In this case, the organism wasn't even a seed.
Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General
Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set,
and Monsanto took advantage of it. With the patenting of a single
bacteria, generations of precedent and common sense were overturned,
opening the floodgates for patenting life forms based on very minor
changes in genetic structure and the takeover of 70-90% of the
global seed market by Monsanto. So much for anti-trust legislation.
(In a later case regarding genetically modified alfalfa, Clarence
Thomas refused to recuse himself despite his background as a Monsanto
lawyer. His was the determining vote that allowed Monsanto dominance
over the world food supply to continue to grow.)

Farmers who buy Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seeds are
required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced
after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other
farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those
increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed
killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.

The corporate takeover of our food supply has been further
obfuscated. Monsanto has, on the one hand, bullied the patent office
into allowing the patenting of seeds as "unique" products
(ignoring the 99.9% of seed development carried on by generations of
farmers); they have also, on the other hand, bullied the FDA into
accepting genetically modified seed as "substantially equivalent"
to open pollinated seed, so the GM foods do not have to be labeled.
As Jim Gerritsen pointed out with fervor, "They can't have it both
ways." Well, they do have it both ways unless the OSGATA et al
vs. Monsanto suit is allowed a court hearing! Over 90% of Americans
believe that GMO labeling should be required, but the government has
favored the corporate voice over the popular voice. This favoritism
of the 1% over the 99% will only become stronger, unless we empower
ourselves as a people.

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Seed saving has been done for ten thousand years, ever since
humans evolved from hunting and gathering cultures to agricultural.
The beginning of the agricultural revolution allowed people to stay
at home to work the fields and tend to the animals. It also allowed
for increased food security. In a hunting expedition, you may or may
not see any game and even if you do, you might miss. In foraging,
you also have less control over whether you will find food or not.
With agriculture, unfortunately, control became
a central aspect of developing human culture.

In essence, many of the animals that became domesticated did so
realizing they were in a "win -- win" situation. While chickens
and cows may be placed on our dining room table, the fact is we give
them food alongside a secure place to live out their lives. Indeed,
it is easy to imagine wild dogs who begin to realize that humans were
willing to feed them, which reduced their need to hunt. Thus, the
species DOG increasingly aligned itself with humans as pets and
partners in hunting, herding and other talents that dogs are
proficient at.

I hope it is apparent that I am ascribing an intelligence to the
species and not so much to individual animals or people. I personally
don't see any distinction between Nature and Wisdom. For those that
see Nature as verb, I would give them the distinction while saying
that Wisdom is Nature's Process. In the words of the Tao Te
Ching, Wisdom is the Way. This
line of reasoning is supported through Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis.
The Gaia Hypothesis posits that the organic and inorganic components
of Planet Earth have evolved together as a single living,
self-regulating system. It suggests that this living system has
automatically controlled global temperature, atmospheric content,
ocean salinity, and other factors, that maintains its own
habitability. In a phrase, "life maintains conditions suitable for
its own survival." In this respect, the living system of Earth can
be thought of analogous to the workings of any individual organism
that regulates body temperature, blood salinity, etc. So, for
instance, even though the luminosity of the sun -- the Earth's
heat source -- has increased by about 30 percent since life began
almost four billion years ago, the living system has reacted as a
whole to maintain temperatures at levels suitable for life.

As animals may
acclimate to climate by growing or shedding fur, the Earth appears to
react to the Sun's luminosity. Thus there appears to be a feedback
system in place where inputs spark reactions and those reactions then
become inputs back into the environment. The process then becomes
cyclical and not necessarily linear. Ultimately, this also relates
to the work of chaos theory where everything affects everything else.
Changing one thing means you change everything.

Take the simple
act of breathing. Your inhalation of oxygen is converted into
carbon dioxide which the trees breathe in. The trees then convert
the carbon into oxygen which you then breath in. So, if you chop
down all the forests, what happens?

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What this boils
down to regarding how we work the land is that how we affect the land
affects the planet and how we affect the planet, in turn, affects us.
If our industries are spewing out more carbon dioxide, then we are
losing oxygen for our own lungs. On top of this, as we deforest the
planet, we are taking out the very plants that are manufacturing
oxygen for us to breathe, not to mention helping to regulate the
cycle of water. We are systematically making the planet
uninhabitable for our species as well as all other mammals.

When humanity
begins to "mess" with natural systems, as is the case in genetic
engineering and standardized farming processes, then we mess with the
entire planet, which means we "mess" with ourselves, and our
friends and family. This is exactly why the work of people like Jim
Gerritsen is important.

Monsanto, in
essence, is playing with fire in manipulating genes as if they were
commodities. In so doing, they are fostering and increasing the
disastrous results of our overbuilding, and exhaling unhealthy levels
of carbon dioxide through deforesting and industry. When taken in
relationship to the inhumane and cruel way in which corporate farming
treats animals, and how the educational system treats children, the
entire process speaks to dictatorial control over people and Nature
through standardization and control. This was not what agriculture
was intended to lead to, but it IS what it has come down to unless we
support the small family farmers of the world (Davids) in the face of
the economic and political clout of corporations such as Monsanto
(Goliaths).

Yet, evolution
does not occur this way. It is not dictated by some external means.
As the mystics say, God is within. Just so the evolutionary
potential (call Him Buddha, Christ, Krishna or Buffalo Woman) is
within us. The way that evolutionary potential is suppressed is by
the overall modern tendency of humanity to control and dominate
others, including other people as well as the planet. What we need
to do is to begin structuring systems of farming, education, living
etc in which potential is allowed to unfold. How we farm mirrors how
we live. Dare we take the power out of the hands of the sociopaths,
the corporations and underling politicians, and place it back into
the hands of ordinary people and communities?

Burl is an avid writer and publishes to OpEd News. He is author of "Sophia's Web: A Passionate Call to Heal Our Wounded Nature." As of this writing, Burl is planning to self-publish the book. Alongside his wife, Burl co-hosts an on line radio (more...)